LUKE O’ TOOLE’S
What a weekend the under-14 hurlers of Luke O Toole’s had.
They went to Wexford to take part in the AllIreland Feile and although they returned home without any silverware they did themselves, their family and their club proud.
With a very, very young team, the coaching team of Kieran O’ Shea, John Byrne and Pete Carroll, worked wonders to prepare the team for the competition. No stone was left unturned in the preparation.
The players themselves collected the largest percentage of the funds required to participate, and with further funding coming from a coffee morning fundraiser and the very kind sponsorship of local business the team were set.
Playing against St Mary’s of Rosslare and Wolfe Tones of Longford on the Friday evening, it certainly looked like the occasion got to the players as they failed to reach any sort of form and went down 2-04 to 1-02 and 2-03 to 1-00 respectively, while at the same time their wonderful hosts Kilmore were successful, winning their two games 0-04 to 0-02 and 3-07 to 1-03 respectively.
On Saturday morning the players showed their true potential and were very unluckly to draw with Kilmore at 1-04 to 2-01, with the Kilmore goal coming with the last puck of the game and deep in to injury time.
Nevertheless, it looked like Luke O’Toole’s had arrived at the Féile a day late.
Into the Shield quarter-final then and they played Carlow Town Hurling Club and even without their star player, Dylan Byrne, they played out of their skins and came away with a deserved victory on 3-04 to 2-02.
On Sunday morning, the boys were up and leaving Kilmore at 7.30am to play Kilveagh of Armagh at 10.00am in Carlow in the All-Ireland Shield semi-final and although getting of to a dream start and fighting all the way to the end, they came up short on a score of 4-02 to 2-02 to bow out of the competition.
Great credit to the players and mentors for giving us all another Féile weekend to remember for the rest of our lives, and a big shout out to our magnificent hosts Kilmore who looked after us second to none.
The 21 players that took part in the 2017 Féile were: Daragh Hayden, Oisin Keegan, Kevin Murray, Patrick Fay, Ned Williams, Shane Arthur, Sam Carroll, Callum Mutton, Larry Kinsella, Steven O’ Toole, Mark Shannon, Joe McClean, Hugh Gunning, Philip Toomey, Dermot Toomey, Lorcan Toomey, Dylan Byrne, Ciaran Lambert, Boris Ivanoff, Alex Kavanagh, Rory O’Dare.